Michael Sharpe on Radio 4 Today / Tom Feilden BBC (18th march 2019)

On reflection, what this reminded me of was the interview with Crawley on You and Yours when there was a perfectly sensible programme for 40 minutes or so and then a last minute interview with Crawley was awkwardly levered in at the end. The presenter's heart was not in this. It was something imposed from above.
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
I think it is interesting that on this occasion the complaint was not really about abuse or death threats but about criticism of the science. And that was portrayed as hate campaign. So now Sharpe is being a bit more honest - he is actually complaining about the critique of his science. And his story about 'how science works' is nonsense. It is how the self-perpetuating establishment mediocrity works maybe, but in complete violation of the principles of science where scepticism rules supreme.
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He did come across as an academic trying to avoid criticism. He also complained about attempts to retract papers even though that was what he was doing recently.

I do think part of this debate is about academics trying to assert their rights to not be criticized outside of a small closed circle of colleagues who peer review things they write. Perhaps for some the notion that others may assess the quality of their work is really scary (as they know it is poor).
 
Three Chord Monty said:
He claims the results have been replicated. Considering what the NIH had to say about the Oxford Criteria...I would question what good that replication amounts to. Besides a lot of wasted money, of course.
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If his attempt at replication is to change the recovery criteria halfway through the trial and drop all the objective measures because you know you won't get the results you want then there has been replication. So what does that also say about the other studies previously. The justification for the PACE trial was that they didn't have a definitive answer
from all previous trials.
 
Sounds like he is going on the offensive and is desperate.
This often works for a while until the house of cards shatters. A biomarker or treatment will do that and its likely part of their goals is to prevent money going to biomedical research.
Is lying or fraud any sort of breach of his professional ethics or employment? I have no idea how things work in the UK but in other countries there are ethics boards, employers can terminate employees who act unethically and doctors have to belong to professional organizations with licenses that discipline members who breach medical ethics or harm patients.
Is any of that similar in the UK?
 
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